


The Stand-In

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [82]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Soap Opera AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8136470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Soap Opera AU."Soap star Rodney McKay is running lines with a stand-in with whom he as awesome chemistry.





	

“You, stand-in.”  
  
The dark-haired man turned.   
  
Rodney had never seen him before. He was incredibly handsome, but his hair was out of control (Jennifer, the hairdresser, would never have let anyone out her chair with their hair like that.)  
  
“Me?” the man asked.  
  
Rodney nodded, beckoned to him. “Get on the first mark. Help me run lines.”  
  
“Okay.” The man smiled easily - yes, he was very handsome - and stepped into the green gaff tape on the floor opposite Rodney’s blue mark.  
  
Stargate was Canada’s longest-running soap opera, and with the new Atlantis evolution - in another galaxy - the showrunners Elizabeth Weir and Daniel Jackson had decided to take a risk and make Rodney’s character, Dr. David Hewlett, the first openly bisexual character in soap opera history. And this season they’d decided to take it a step further, give him his first male love interest. Rumor had it they’d chosen Cameron Mitchell, who was coming off of a long run on a space opera. Guy was easy on the eyes, tall, blue-eyed, American, nice little Southern drawl, but Rodney had worked with him once before and didn’t think much of him. Still, he was a professional, and he’d work with the guy, be nice, flirt with him when the script called for it, kiss him when the script called for it, and even get naked when the time came.  
  
Rodney handed the stand-in his script. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ve got my lines memorized. Rodney, by the way.” He offered his hand.  
  
“John. Nice to meet you. What page are we on?”  
  
Rodney told him, still eyeing him curiously. Who was he standing in for? Rodney didn’t know of any new characters who were dark-haired, lean, and sharp-featured like John. “ _So there’s good news and bad news,_ ” Rodney said.  
  
John answered without missing a beat. “ _I’m a positive kind of guy. Give me the good news._ ”  
  
“ _You have the Ancient Gene,_ ” Rodney said, warming up to the pace of the dialogue. While most of the other actors were desperate to just get their dialogue out in a decent enough take that they could move on (soap operas put out a new episode so often that the shooting schedules were brutal and getting ‘good enough’ in one take was a necessity), Rodney appreciated the finer aspects of acting as an art, the technical skills, hitting the right beats in dialogue.  
  
“ _So what’s the bad news? There can’t be a downside._ ” John met Rodney’s gaze, arched his eyebrows, and he was pretty decent, getting into it. Of course, plenty of stand-ins were hopeful actors, so it wasn’t unprecedented for the man to have some skill.  
  
“ _The downside is that the gene is rare even in this galaxy, and with the strength of the gene you have, your DNA is...valuable._ ”  
  
“ _So we could sell it for money._ ” John shrugged, every inch the nonchalant soldier Joe Flanigan was supposed to be.  
  
“ _So people will try to steal it from you,_ ” Rodney said pointedly, “ _or, you know, just steal you._ ”  
  
John’s little smirk was infuriating and also sexy. Rodney really wouldn’t have minded if he was really playing Joe. “ _You’ll protect me, right?_ ”  
  
“ _I think you’re forgetting who’s the soldier and who’s the scientist here,_ ” Rodney said, and John stepped closer, into his personal space, gazed right into his eyes.   
  
“ _I can show you how to use a gun, and you can show me how to use...other things,_ ” John murmured, voice low and husky.

“That’s brilliant!” Richard cried. “That chemistry is just popping right off the page. Now we need it to pop right off the screen. Let’s get cameras. Gentlemen, reset back to one.”  
  
Rodney blinked. “But...where’s Mitchell?”  
  
“Mitchell who?” Richard asked. “Oh, Cam? He got picked up for another project. We went another direction.”  
  
“Then who -?” Rodney demanded.  
  
“John, obviously,” Richard said.  
  
John, stepping back to his mark, smirked at Rodney.  
  
“I thought you were a stand-in,” Rodney protested.  
  
John shrugged. “So you did.”  
  
“And you let me!”  
  
“I wanted to see what you’re made of.” John looked Rodney up and down, and his smirk turned into something heated and sultry. “Looks like you’re made of pretty good stuff. So, think we can do that again?”  
  
“Absolutely,” Rodney said, because if they could do that again, that meant John would stay, and they would move onto more.  
  
Much more.


End file.
